One of Spanish cinema's great auteurs, Carlos Saura brought international
audiences closer to the art of his country's dance than any other filmmaker,
before or since. In his Flamenco Trilogy—Blood Wedding, Carmen,
and El amor brujo—Saura merged his passion for music with his exploration
of national identity. All starring and choreographed by legendary dancer Antonio
Gades, the films feature thrilling physicality and electrifying cinematography
and editing—colorful paeans to bodies in motion as well as to cinema itself.

Titles

Blood Wedding
Carlos Saura, 1981
Carlos Saura began what would become his trilogy with this depiction of a single
dress rehearsal for choreographer Antonio Gades's adaptation of poet/playwright
Federico Garcia Lorca's tale of passionate revenge. No mere recording of a
ballet, Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding) uses gripping camerawork and
heart-pounding rhythmic editing to evoke the experience of moving with the
dancers every step of the way.

Carmen
Carlos Saura, 1983
Saura's biggest international box-office success was this self-reflexive
meditation on both Bizet's popular opera Carmen and the original novella by
Prosper Merimee. Antonio Gades plays a choreographer who gets involved with his
neophyte lead dancer (Laura del Sol), and grows dangerously jealous. Depicting
the ups and downs of their affair in between rehearsals for Gades's ballet,
Carmen is a visually hypnotic hall of mirrors in which the dancers become
inseparable from their personas.

El amor brujo
Carlos Saura, 1986
The Flamenco Trilogy's most straightforward narrative is also its most
forthrightly theatrical, a modern take on composer Manuel de Falla's gypsy
ballet, dressed up in pink sunsets and hellishly red fires. Set in a dusty
Andalusian village, El amor brujo (Love the Magician) is a seductive melodrama
of a man (Antonio Gades) whose beloved is haunted by the ghost of another..

NOTE:
The 3 feature films of this boxset are housed in slim individual
transparent keep cases (see image above) and they are not sold separately at this time.
I believe only Saura's Carmen has been released in other DVD
editions (in PAL) and the other two, Blood Wedding and El Amor
Brujo, may be making their DVD debut in English friendly digital

.

I'm happy to announce that none of these three are pictureboxed transferred
(see our full description of 'pictureboxing' in our
Kind Hearts and Coronets review).
Each are coded for Region 1 in the NTSC standard. Blood Wedding is single layered and
Carmen and El Amor Brujo are on dual-layered discs. The transfers are
progressive and in the original aspect ratios (1.33 for Blood Wedding
and anamorphic 1.66 for Carmen and El Amor Brujo). The audio for all is
original Spanish mono and there are optional
English subtitles. The Studio Canal and D.A. International logos start each film so we can assume
that is the transfer source(s).

Image quality: El Amor Brujo
has some of the most dramatic
shots of the trilogy but is probably the weakest of the three transfers
with Blood Wedding sporting pristine sharpness and pitch black
levels (possibly lightly boosted) - Carmen is not far behind in
terms of detail with a smattering of fine digital noise and somewhat
muted colors.
There are
no distracting speckles and the images are relatively free of damage. I
think the captures below give a fair representation of how the DVD
package looks. They look good!

Audio was quite healthy and I noted no significant dropout flaws or
excessive background hiss. The audio is supported with optional English
subtitles.

As standard for Eclipse there are no digital
supplements but some excellent liner notes readable through the keep case cover for each
film.

All three works here are highly lauded
films and rightly so. Saura utilizes the
precision and passion of dance for his subtle theatric endowments. The
trilogy is both hypnotic and enticing - time seems to fly by as you
watch them. A mistake would be to solely judge these films without
viewing them in their entirety - they are not simply dance movies -
there is so much more conveyed and I am so very glad to have had the
opportunity to view them with such competent image quality.
Highly recommended - enjoy this infectious and dramatic world cinema
effort - WOW!

Carlos Saura began what would become his trilogy with this depiction of a single
dress rehearsal for choreographer Antonio Gades's adaptation of poet/playwright
Federico Garcia Lorca's tale of passionate revenge. No mere recording of a
ballet, Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding) uses gripping camerawork
and heart-pounding rhythmic editing to evoke the experience of moving with the
dancers every step of the way.

Subtitle Sample

Screen Captures

Slim
Transparent Keep Case Cover

Carmen (1983)

Directed by Carlos Saura

Starring Antonio Gades, Laura del Sol, Paco de Lucía and Marisol

Saura's biggest international box-office success was this self-reflexive
meditation on both Bizet's popular opera Carmen and the original novella
by Prosper Merimee. Antonio Gades plays a choreographer who gets involved with
his neophyte lead dancer (Laura del Sol), and grows dangerously jealous.
Depicting the ups and downs of their affair in between rehearsals for Gades's
ballet, Carmen is a visually hypnotic hall of mirrors in which the dancers
become inseparable from their personas.

The Flamenco Trilogy's most straightforward narrative is also its most
forthrightly theatrical, a modern take on composer Manuel de Falla's gypsy
ballet, dressed up in pink sunsets and hellishly red fires. Set in a dusty
Andalusian village, El amor brujo (Love the Magician) is a
seductive melodrama of a man (Antonio Gades) whose beloved is haunted by the
ghost of another..